Comments

Comment by mak484

I have made broken down all of the current masteries into two categories: unique, interesting masteries and flat bonus masteries.

Unique, interesting masteries:

Flat bonus masteries:

Why this mastery is interestingThis mastery allows resto druids to heal for more when it counts. 20% bonus healing on a target about to die beats 10% bonus healing at all times. It will be interesting to see how much an increase this gives to heals on targets at almost full health, and whether the hots will automatically heal for more as the target loses health, or if you will have to re-cast the hot. Either way, this is a powerful mechanic.

Comment by ProsperoVII

Currently, this is not a Mastery that warrants thinking about. Don't bother HoTing before healing. It's a waste. Right now this feels more like random extra healing. Sometimes you'll proc higher heals with this because of Wild Growth/Regrowth/Rejuvenations that just happen to be leftover on your target. Sometimes not, when there's no HoT on your target. Nothing to focus on. Just happens, and when it does: Cool.

This makes this Mastery somewhat less game changing than most, but that doesnt mean it isn't powerful. It's just nothing that will alter how you heal. It does make tank healing somewhat easier, but so does raw spellpower. My point is that right now in the Beta, Im guessing that Resto Druids will not stack Mastery Rating like other healers might. We will certainly benefit from whatever amount is found on our gear, but dont expect to gemming too much Mastery Rating at this rate. Other stats work just as well.

Comment by GilbertoGrape

Ya, it's pretty mindless, but so are most of the masteries. They're there to benefit things that you would be doing anyways. And yes, I wouldn't cast this right before an "oh crap" heal (ie NSHT) to get an additional 10%, but I wouldn't call it without strategy. I could see this being very useful combined with Rejuvenation, Gift of the Earthmother, and Swiftmend. If someone drops quick, but not to the point of NSHT you could simply cast Rejuvenation then Swiftmend. Essentially, you'd get an instant 15% Rejuvenation heal and then 1 gcd later a 110% Rejuvenation heal and be left with a HoT on that target. This also works well with Nourish which already recieves a 20% bonus to healing for having a HoT present. All in all, I think this is a perfect fit for a Resto Druid mastery.

Comment by Oraculum

I could not disagree with you more.

Currently, this is not a Mastery that warrants thinking about. Don't bother HoTing before healing. It's a waste

This is a not a mastery that warrants thinking about? All Priest/Shaman/Paladin Masteries have zero thought. You cast your spell and you get your bonus. With Druids every HoT has the chance to increase your output by 10%. Every HoT increases the efficiency of your next spell by 10%+. That is in fact something very worthwhile to think about.

Don't bother casting a spell to get a 10%+ boost to your healing? What? That doesn't make any sense. Why wouldn't you try to increase your output when you are tank healing or even on raid healing duty? Cata won't be the same as WotLK in that all healers will be racing to top off all targets ASAP. There will be job assignments and people will not always be trying to stomp on your HoTs because in doing so they will rush themselves or you into being OOM.

Honestly if you are going to make a comment like this... explain why you think this. I came here looking for facts and well thought out opinions on this mastery.

Will this mastery effect existing Hots? IE, if HoT 1 is placed on a target it will do 100% of it's healing. If HoT 2 is placed on the same target as HoT 1, will it make HoT 1 do 110% healing for its remaining ticks and HoT 2 do 110%?

Will each stack of lifebloom affect the bonus? IE 3 lifebloom stacks now heal for 330% more than 1 lifebloom stack? If so lifebloom X3 + Nourish to refresh it could be an incredibly efficient way to tank heal. Given that mana matters, this could easily make Druids the most efficient healers (stack regen + mastery and then roll Lifeblooms + nourish to refresh).

Comment by Ispamheals

This is kind of random, but learning this from your class trainer can proc Clearcasting.

Comment by cliffpriest

Think this is an attempt to make Resto druids a little more of a "main tank healer"? This, coupled with the fact that Lifebloom can only be cast on one target AND nourish and Healing touch can refresh lifebloom. I think this mastery will be a must for druids trying to nudge in on those main tank healer spots while VERY SLOWLY walking away from the "raid healer" status we are so great at. Thoughts?

edit because I cannot spell.

Comment by JPato01

4.0.3a: Symbiosis: heal-over-time spells (Rejuvenation, Regrowth, Lifebloom) can no longer benefit from this Mastery merely by refreshing themselves. A different heal-over-time spell must be present.

i don't get it, anyone?

Comment by Shagg

So...

Does the periodic heal of HoTs cast after another HoT benefit from the mastery, or is it just the direct heals which get the bonus (i.e. HT, Nourish, direct portion of RG, SM)?

Comment by Shagg

Does the periodic healing of HoTs which are cast after another HoT benefit from this mastery, or is it just the direct healing spells (i.e. HT, Nourish, SM, direct portion of RG)?

Comment by Verikansa

I read all your posts and i tested everything myself. I've done the tests with two different sets of equipment:

For me mastery is really in the back of the list of stats to choose/reforge. SP/Mana Regen/Haste are way much more important at least in this stage of the game. Furthermore I've choosed to drop " Empowered Touch" with crap gear, firstly because all heals do crap healing compared to other classes, and with bad grp/tank you end up mana starved all the time. So instead havin this talent I use the 3 stacks of lifebloom + its healing at the end to mainly heal the tank + adding hots depending on the dmg. Recasting it aint such a pain mana wise, because it dosnt cost much and the heal of 22k+ and the ticks itself are more worthy thant the huge mana requirment from healing touch for example that heals for crap if it dosnt crit, which you`ll have to use if the tank suffers huge amount of dmg. I havent raided much yet so further comments on this subject will be added but for now these are my observations on this topic.

Comment by nayrb

Resto Druids should currently be Gemming, Reforging, Enchanting, and Gearing based off of the following:

Intellect > Spirit > Haste > Mastery > Critical Strike

With this being said, mastery MUST be considered when using your healing rotation.

While Tank Healing:Make sure you have 3 stacks of Lifebloom up at all times on your MT. Drop a Rejuv on you tank if he's taking consistent damage. Use Nourish to refresh Lifebloom when tank has a small health deficit, and use Healing Touch to refresh Lifebloom when tank has a larger health deficit. Do not rely heavily on Regrowth, as it is a highly inefficient heal (but can get you out of some bad situations). I like to save regrowth for when Omen of Clarity procs to get a quick, strong, free heal. As long as Lifebloom is active at all times.. every other heal will >10% stronger. {as a side note, I've gone through entire 5m heroics without Lifebloom ever leaving the tank == will show you doing millions of points of overhealing, but if your mana regen is strong enough, you'll be at max mana anyway}

While Raid Healing:Most bosses will damage melee targets more frequently than range targets. Out of the melee classes, rogues get nuked the hardest, so I like to put my 3 stacks of Lifebloom on either a rogue, myself, the other healer, or the tank (depending on the fight). Having the 3 stacks of Lifebloom up will once again make sure that Omen of Clarity is proc'ing. When AoE damage exists, use Wild Growth (you better have it spec'd into and glyphed) and then apply Rejuv on all targets taking damage. Casting Wild Growth first will increase your rejuv healing by >10% on all targets effected. Of course, use Healing Touch/Regrowth/Tranquility when in trouble.

Why Haste > Mastery:Simply put, decreased cast time and increased number of ticks from HoTs. There are a few tables available on the web that will show you the breaking points of HoTs, but this is the Mastery page, not the Healing over Time page. The combination of these two advantages will be much better than the increased effect in Mastery. The base gained mastery percentage is strong enough to base your rotation off of, but concentrate increasing haste over mastery.

Comment by Superbeard

The final heal of lifebloom counts as a separate heal from its ticking part. If you cast some lifebloom on a target, then cast rejuvenation or something before its final heal, the big heal will be mastered. It works the other way also. Cast rejuv on a target, wait a few seconds, then stack lifebloom. The ticking part will be mastered, but the final heal won't be if the rejuvenation wore off first.

When healing a tank, start off with lb, rejuv, lb, lb so they will master each other. Have another hot on the tank when you do anything that refreshes the lifebloom or it will lose its mastery. In many (most?) cases, simply keep rejuv up on them too, refreshing it as soon as it expires. If lifebloom is almost out and they need the big heal, make sure another hot is on them before it blooms, then restack it with the chain of mastery in mind.

Comment by jameinel

I did some testing today about both what is effected by Symbiosis and what provides Symbiosis.

Rejuv, Lifebloom, Regrowth, and Wild Growth all provide and benefit from Symbiosis.Tranquility (HoT and direct heal) benefits from, but the Tranquility HoT does not provide Symbiosis.Nourish, Healing Touch benefit from, but do not provide Symbiosis (obviously).Swiftmend and Efflorescence neither provide nor benefit from Symbiosis.

So when using Swiftmend and its proc'd Efflorescence, it doesn't matter if the target has 1 or 2 HoTs on them, the associated SM will be the same size, and the Efflorescence will heal for the same amount. Further, targets that have your HoTs on them won't get extra healing from Efflorescence.

The big trick of the day I found was Tree of Life + Wild Growth + Tranquility. ToL gives you +15% healing +2 extra targets for Wild Growth, and the final Tranquility can get Symbiosis boosted against all those WG targets. And since WG and Tranquility both target lowest-health-first they have a high probability of stacking. Note that Tranquility has the same channeled time as WG's HoT time. So the very last tick of Tranquility won't benefit from Symbiosis (tested), because WG will have worn off. Note that the Tranquility HoT also gets refreshed by that last tick, so the 5 ticks after you finish channeling also do not benefit. If you cancel the Tranquility one tick early, the remaining HoT does benefit from Symbiosis.

So you give up a direct heal of 8275 for 5 ticks at 3487 instead of 2992(2,475 total). Clearly, you don't want to cancel the channel early, but it is ashame that you lose your Symbiosis bonus over time.

Comment by Cakekun

This mastery will be replaced with a new mastery, as said in 4.2 Patch Notes:

Symbiosis (Mastery) has been removed and replaced with Harmony. Harmony increases direct healing by an additional 10%, and casting direct healing spells grants an additional 10% bonus to periodic healing for 10 seconds. Each point of mastery increases each bonus by an additional 1.25%. Healing Touch, Nourish, Swiftmend, and the initial heal from Regrowth are considered direct healing spells for the purposes of this Mastery. All other healing from druid spells is considered periodic.

Comment by solieus

Harmony is a much-needed improvement for a Druid's Raid capabilities. It gives a constant bonus to direct healing, and as long as you use HT, Nourish, Swiftmend, Nourish or Regrowth once every 10 seconds, all your HoTs are given a 10% bonus. I can easily see myself keeping up this buff without even thinking about it most of the time. Though monitoring the 10-second buff will take a while to get used to, it means everyone will benefit from your mastery, making druids much more capable in a raid-healing role where rarely will you have time to make sure your targets have at least 1 hot on them in order for the old symbiosis mastery to apply.

I think, as long as they don't shorten the buff duration, this mastery will be awesome.

Comment by JPato01

the HoT buff is refreshed anyway, so tank-healing will have no problem with that, raid-healing... well it's a 10s buff

Comment by JPato01

The HoT buff is refreshed, so tank-healing will have no problem with that, raid-healing... well it's a 10s buff

Comment by Kuradora

the HoT buff is refreshed anyway, so tank-healing will have no problem with that, raid-healing... well it's a 10s buff

It is true that tank healers will benefit from this easily, but it will be just as easy for raid healers. So long as the 10 seconds counts towards any target, rather than being on the same one (such as it is now, with requiring a HoT on the target, for symbiosis to count for that target) - The initial phase of regrowth counts, and raid healers will have to toss one out every once in a while anyway.

Sounds like 4.2 will make mastery gains more clear-cut, and more beneficial as well.

Comment by rodalpho

I'm pasting it here as they typically delete the beta forums after release.

Q: Should we expect the order to become consistent (So, change HoT, then heal, or vice versa) or should we expect the order to maximize mastery (change HoT then heal when applying HoT's, heal then change HoT when removing HoT's)

A: We're going to consistently say that a heal event occurs, and then an associated heal over time effect is applied/removed. So this means that, for example, Effloresence will lose the +1 mastery from its own Spring Blossoms application, but the Lifebloom bloom will gain it. Cultivation will always be applied after the Rejuv tick that caused it.

The only exception is Rejuvenation's initial periodic healing, which actually is periodic healing, and it conceptually doesn't make sense for it to occur without a Rejuvenation heal-over-time effect present. It will benefit from its own mastery bonus.

Comment by Casn

There are 8 distinct spells that can increase power of 7.0 version of this mastery, some of them exclusive with each other.

With that, it's possible to have up to 7 "stacks" of mastery. And while currently tooltip has "$witch<1>" which would suggest upper limit, testing on dummy shows that all 6 HoTs I applied counted. Last update to PTR removed this line, meaning upper cap was probably never intended.